| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: Fenogenov remembered it, and muttered with clenched fists:
"If he doesn't send money I'll smash her! I won't let myself be
made a fool of, damn my soul!"
At one provincial town the company tried to give Masha the slip,
but Masha found out, ran to the station, and got there when the
second bell had rung and the actors had all taken their seats.
"I've been shamefully treated by your father," said the
tragedian; "all is over between us!"
And though the carriage was full of people, she went down on her
knees and held out her hands, imploring him:
"I love you! Don't drive me away, Kondraty Ivanovitch," she
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: of candy, nuts, and oranges, which she would distribute joyfully
to them, and then be gone again.
Tom watched the little lady a great deal, before he ventured
on any overtures towards acquaintanceship. He knew an abundance
of simple acts to propitiate and invite the approaches of the little
people, and he resolved to play his part right skilfully. He could
cut cunning little baskets out of cherry-stones, could make grotesque
faces on hickory-nuts, or odd-jumping figures out of elder-pith,
and he was a very Pan in the manufacture of whistles of all sizes
and sorts. His pockets were full of miscellaneous articles of
attraction, which he had hoarded in days of old for his master's
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: Bee scientists always speak of the bee as she. It is
because all the important bees are of that sex. In the hive
there is one married bee, called the queen; she has fifty
thousand children; of these, about one hundred are sons; the rest
are daughters. Some of the daughters are young maids, some are
old maids, and all are virgins and remain so.
Every spring the queen comes out of the hive and flies away
with one of her sons and marries him. The honeymoon lasts only
an hour or two; then the queen divorces her husband and returns
home competent to lay two million eggs. This will be enough to
last the year, but not more than enough, because hundreds of bees
What is Man? |
